


make a hawk a dove

by trepan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Death and Resurrection, F/F, Light Bondage, Light D/s Dynamics, Magic, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Non-Greek goddesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-11-09 15:17:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11107260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepan/pseuds/trepan
Summary: Natasha and Diana met once, during the Cold War. Twice. It was a long time ago; it was yesterday.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: as in fandoms above, this is just my imagined movie crossover universe, haven't read the comics.

WASHINGTON, DC, 1987

 

Wonder Woman disappointed Natasha.

She came in behind the fish one, hands folded. There was no hint of irony in her pose; instead she had a cowlike sincerity about her. It was something to do with the black shining eyes, the overfull lower lip.

“They say she is the daughter of Zeus,” Sam whispered beside her.

“An old euphemism,” Natasha whispered back. “Americans take her literally.”

“Miss Rushman,” Bill said, almost as softly. “If you would, take notes on this.” _Instead of talking to your little friend_. Bill did not need to use schoolteacher admonishments; it was his permanent tone of voice.

Natasha swallowed visibly. “Yes, sir,” she said.

Then the hearing began. Senator Green called her “Ms. Wonder Woman,” and was unsmilingly corrected with “Diana, Princess of Themyscira.” She testified about the conduct of Private Victor in Haiphong with equally little affect. Around the gallery, the noise of several dozen whispers grew as boredom built. Wonder Woman hadn’t been seen outside of press photos in several years. Today she was wearing a black skirt suit and thin spectacles, although Natasha could see from the back row that they were only glass, not prescription. This struck her as a particularly cynical costume.

Sam began rustling around, readying herself to go to the bathroom. “Come with me,” she whispered.

“I can’t,” Natasha returned, cringing a little for effect and pointing at her notepad, then at Wonder Woman on the stand below.

She waited as Senator Green prodded at an increasingly monosyllabic Wonder Woman.

“How’s it going, Miss Rushman?” Bill asked, leaning over. He was genuinely pedantic, but Natasha thought he was indulging himself in this case mainly to impress Senator Novak, three seats down, whose head had just turned.

“I’ve been taking down bullets, Mr. Waskin,” she said, showing him the legal pad.

At last Wonder Woman removed herself from the stand and went through the doors into the hallway. Natasha said, “Please, Mr. Waskin, while it’s recessed, may I hurry and ask her for her autograph? I’m a _huge_ fan.”

The movement of Senator Novak, getting up, distracted him. At last his lips thinned; he said, “Don’t be too long.”

Natasha wove through the crowd, being sure to knock some elbows along the way. Frank, the seventeen-year-old professional delinquent, was waiting for her there. Just as she drew close to Wonder Woman near the women’s restroom, he snatched her purse (hissing, “Don’t take your time or anything, Natashka”) and took off with it toward the exit while Natasha moaned, “My purse! My purse! He took—”

She broke off; Wonder Woman was on the opposite side of the hallway somehow, wearing an inscrutable expression.

“Wonder Woman!” Natasha breathed. “Oh, Princess Diana—that boy took my purse!”

“Why don’t you chase him, then?” Wonder Woman asked. Her face didn’t change.

“What do you mean?” They were starting to draw a crowd. Natasha shrank back.

Wonder Woman pushed herself off the wall. “I am sure that you could catch him.”

“Not all of us are as gifted as you,” Natasha said, leaving a suggestion in her words.

Wonder Woman didn’t take the bait. “That is very true. But I have great faith in you.”

“So you won’t track down the thief?” Natasha asked. Tears filled her eyes. “My wallet is in there.”

“Oh, I believe he will return it,” Wonder Woman said, and now her black eyes danced a little, infuriatingly. “He seems like a nice boy, and one who knows how to hold on to all of his fingers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Natasha said; she’d learned to say it from an ex-cab driver, so she always put a little New York in it, sentimentally. Now she pulled the accent out as a kind of worry stone. In fact she hardly knew what to say.

“Do you want an autograph?” Wonder Woman said, louder, for the benefit of the crowd. “Since you are a fan of mine?”

“No, that’s OK,” Natasha said, backing toward the gallery. “I have to get back.”

“Nonsense. Come here.” Wonder Woman seized her wrist and freed the legal pad. The crowd tittered.

“Thank you,” Natasha muttered, taking it back when Wonder Woman was finished scrawling underneath her nice neat notes. Sam came out of the crowd and put her arm around Natasha’s waist. The two of them stumbled back into the gallery, being careful not to look back at the goddess in the hallway.

“I think she made me,” Natasha mumbled in Sam’s ear.

Sam grabbed the legal pad.

 _Don’t be too hard on him,_ Wonder Woman had written in a secretary’s script. _Or yourself—I knew you for a warrior the second you entered the room. I hope we meet again._

Below, she signed herself just:

_Diana_

“Fuuuuuck,” Natasha said under her breath, which was the other inflection she had learned from the cab driver.


	2. Chapter 2

SIX MONTHS LATER

 

Natasha did not remember the repercussion for her failure, which was itself a repercussion. Several years ago Ivan had discovered she hated missing memories. Now she was Swiss cheese.

They moved her on to a different project, although she maintained her day job at the senator’s office; it was good to keep men like him around in case of rain. Still, she felt the lash. The new project was decidedly lackluster compared to the Justice League. And Sam had been removed from DC.

She’d liked Sam—in a way.

Through her earpiece George said, _“All right. Now you need to get to the third floor. The stairwell should be to your left.”_

What was the point of having this small man in her ear? Did they expect her to go on a job without memorizing blueprints?

“Yes, sir,” she said.

As she walked flatfooted up the railing (there was nothing wrong with the stairs themselves, only she was a little bored), Natasha muted her mic and sang to herself under her breath.

“I think we’re alone now / There doesn’t seem to be anyone around / I think we’re alone now / The beating of our hearts is the only sound . . .”

It had been playing on the radio lately.

There was very little security inside the office building—most of it was designed to stop people getting in at all. Still, she scanned the door before opening it.

Once on the third floor, Natasha moved along the ceiling via the light fixtures until she hung above the entrance to the enormous corner office. George, supposedly, had looped the security cameras, but given that he was at this very moment in her ear saying _“Clifford’s office should be the one on your far right,”_ Natasha did not particularly trust his abilities.

“Got it,” she said anyway. Then she realized she hadn’t turned the mic back on.

She leaned over to the nearest camera and gave it a slow, steady nudge in a less useful direction. Then she dropped soundlessly down to the carpet and slipped her fake finger on.

The door clicked open. Natasha threw her mobile scanner in, watched it roll across the carpet, and waited. _Bzz_ , it said, irritatingly. American technology was too loud. _Screech_ this and _crunch_ that. Often it had a strange musicality to it, like a ditty composed by some scrap-metal domovoi.

 _“Great job, Oktober,”_ George said cheerfully. _“I’m getting that there’s another fingerprint lock on the desk drawer, and the chair is weight-sensitive.”_

Natasha turned her mic on. “Got it,” she said again.

She went around to the desk, careful not to disrupt the position of the chair, and bent over the drawer, fake finger in place, to study the lock.

She had only just muted her mic and begun to hum the next part of the mall-girl song when her legs flew out from under her and she hit the floor so fast that the breath was knocked out of her.

For a moment, trying to suck in air, she thought someone had grabbed her ankles, and her hands lifted to push at the ground, flip herself upright—

Then the window exploded inward and glass embedded itself in the carpet around her as an enormous bludgeon sent the chair flying and cracked the desk in two above her head.

Natasha barely managed to roll out of the way, and in the process she felt her palms being sliced open by the glass.

Her first thought was _You’re getting blood on the site, you fucking moron_

Then she got a decent look at the room and realized no one had pulled her legs out from under her. It had been her sixth sense, trying to warn her that Wonder Woman was about to wrecking-ball an old woman through the window, straight at Natasha’s head.

 _Thank you, my darling_ , she said to the Thing inside herself which had kept her alive so many times.

The building’s alarm was blaring, and George was shouting in Natasha’s ear. She yanked the earpiece out, put it in her mouth, and bit down. Then she spat the sparking pieces into her palm, stuffed them in her pocket, and glanced up at the wreckage.

On the remains of the desk, the old woman lolled as Wonder Woman scrambled to her feet. She was wearing a cheetah suit, Natasha saw. Not Wonder Woman; the old woman. A funny outfit. It was covered in blood now, and the wrinkled face sported a dozen cuts or more. Her lips were smoking, as if a bullet had been fired from her mouth.

Wonder Woman stared at the woman, then nudged her with her foot. After a moment, she bent cautiously toward the smoking lips and sniffed them.

“Is she dead?” Natasha asked from the darkness of the far corner.

Wonder Woman shook her head without looking up. She pressed her ear to the woman’s chest. Finally she straightened, kneeling, and said, “I have rarely seen anything like it. A moment ago she was half beast, half goddess. Now she is this wraith.”

“Maybe it was the shock of being hurled through a plate-glass window like a baseball,” Natasha suggested.

The corner of Wonder Woman’s mouth turned up. “I did not mean to do that. My friend has often told me that the property damage I cause to the city outweighs the good I do for its inhabitants.”

Natasha privately agreed. “You shouldn’t move her,” she said instead, as Wonder Woman bent again to slip her arms under the woman’s limp body. “She might have a spinal injury. You could paralyze her if you shift her too much.”

Wonder Woman froze. “Ah,” she said. “Yes. Thank you.”

“The cops will be here any minute.” Natasha lounged against the wall, folding her arms. “Paramedics will retrieve her.”

Wonder Woman sat cross-legged on the glass-strewn carpet. The shards did not seem to cut her, despite the expanses of bronzed skin on display. Now her eyes danced again, just as they had that day in the hallway. “I see you are no longer in that dowdy plaid skirt. This is a much better costume for a soldier.” She looked Natasha up and down. “More give.”

“It’s bulletproof,” Natasha said. “Nice for us mortals. You obviously don’t need such a suit.”

Wonder Woman smiled. “No, but I think they’re cute. Like those pajamas for children, with the feet on them.”

Natasha was briefly rendered speechless, which seemed to delight the goddess on the floor.

“So you were on a mission,” Wonder Woman continued. “I must have disrupted it. I apologize, Ms. . . . ?”

“Rushman,” Natasha said. “You did make it slightly more complicated.”

“That is not your name, little spy.” The way she said it was like a term of endearment, and somehow wistful. Natasha should have hated it. Instead she thought it was the most interesting thing that had passed Wonder Woman’s lips in her hearing. “Do you have another one?”

“Natalie is my first name. My friends call me Nat,” Natasha offered, adding a slight hoarseness to her tone—admission, vulnerability.

“That’s not quite true either.” Wonder Woman grinned at her. “But I will call you Nat if you will call me Diana.”

“OK, Diana,” Natasha allowed. “I have to go.”

“Not without the whatsit, surely,” Diana said, feeling around in the rubble for the metal drawer and shaking it at her, so that whatever was inside rattled. “This is what you were after, yes? What does it do?”

“It’s part of a computer file,” Natasha said. “A man is communicating with someone he shouldn’t be. But it’s useless now.” She glanced out of the jagged hole where the window used to be, toward the street. “It was fingerprint-locked.” She held up the ragged remains of her fake finger.

“I see.” Diana looked at the drawer. “I will help you, then, Nat. Since it was my fault you were interrupted.”

“How?” Natasha came closer.

Diana drew out a shining twist of rope. The lasso—Natasha had heard about it. It glowed like it was radioactive. Her superiors would be very interested to know why that was.

Diana touched the end of the rope to the fingerprint-glass. A glimmer burst somewhere in the electronic background of the glass, and then the drawer slid open. Two computer chips fell out into Diana’s broad hand.

“How?” Natasha said again.

Diana tipped the chips into Natasha’s palm. Their fingers brushed. “Magic. Or technology. You choose.”

“Thank you,” Natasha said, staring at the lasso.

In the wreckage to their left, the old woman groaned. Natasha’s gaze snapped to her.

“I do not know if they can help her,” Diana said sadly. “Her insides are burned.”

“Is that a metaphor?” Natasha asked, standing once more. She could hear sirens now, not far off.

“No,” Diana said, looking surprised. “Her insides are literally scalded. I have only seen one other case like this—and she died.”

“What happened?”

“She drank—” Then Diana said a word Natasha could not translate. “Ambrosia,” she added, seeing the look on Natasha’s face.

“I think you’re pulling my leg,” Natasha said flatly. She’d liked Diana, and now this.

Diana’s face cleared. “I love this expression. But it is true. I’ll tell you sometime, the full story.”

“Next time you ruin one of my missions?”

“No,” Diana said. “I’ll call on you. I know where you work.” She glanced around. “Now hurry. They are only a minute away.”

Still Natasha hung in the doorway. She was annoyed with Diana for pulling out the mythology—she’d been recognized so quickly as a warrior, only to be treated like a child. She wanted to leave with the upper hand. “Will you also tell me the story of the other spy you knew?”

Diana’s face shuttered. Her eyes were old. “No,” she said.

Natasha groped for a response, but she found nothing. She went silently into the hallway, leaving Diana in the destroyed room with the half-corpse.


	3. Chapter 3

 

For once, Natasha had pleased a majority of her bosses. Her report included mention of Diana’s extraordinary recuperation factor—far beyond what the Room had managed to produce—as well as her use of the lasso on the fingerprint lock, a never-before-observed technological application. Diana was one of the few augmented assets whose abilities had not been extensively documented. Moreover, her public appearances were rare, and gaining access to her was difficult.

The computer chips had yielded enough evidence to justify a quiet assassination. Natasha was permitted to do the honors. The Americans called her exemplary and gave her a second level of clearance.

Meanwhile, Senator Waskin made sure she overheard him on the phone telling another senator that she was sloppy. It was difficult to walk the line between “vague incompetence” and “fired.” Natasha made sure to handle his schedule correctly for the next week and a half. She arranged for the senator’s office to send flowers to the family of a recently deceased software company CEO. He’d once donated to Senator Waskin’s campaign, after all.

It was December now; a holly wreath hung on the door to the senator’s office, and someone had put a tree on the lawn of the Capitol. Natasha walked two blocks to the street vendors that blocked foot traffic near the DA’s office. She bought a knish and an orange soda from Bert.

“I don’t understand it,” Bert complained, as he did every day. “If I told my wife, she’d wanna kill you. You’re eating this shit every day, and you look like Marilyn Monroe.”

“Sell it to me harder,” Natasha said. “I can see you really want my money.”

“I’m just saying.” He took her dollar fifty and went back to his copy of _The Urth of the New Sun._

Natasha sat down on one of the stone benches and took in the view. DC was one of her least favorite cities in America so far. There was so little pleasure in its design. Like a garden made out of concrete. The form was correct, but the function was missing.

She’d been to Los Angeles once. That was a real city—it had grown, like a city should, its palette flinging itself wide, so that even in the suburbs you knew where you were. DC could not grow; the Loop kept its inner circle stagnant, like a manmade pond.

Someone approached Natasha from behind. She loosened her shoulders as the air beside her warmed with another person’s body heat.

“Diana,” she said, biting down on her smile.

“I was trying to be stealthy, like you,” Diana said. “Is it my smell?”

“No,” Natasha said. “I felt you. You’re like a furnace. I bet you look like a solar flare on thermal vision.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Diana crossed her legs, and Natasha turned to look at her. She was wearing her spectacles again, along with a pair of pressed navy trousers, men’s loafers, and the kind of ugly turquoise windbreaker you could buy near any of the ferries. “What were you thinking, just now?” Diana asked. “With your mouth all mushed, like so.” She mushed her mouth in imitation.

Natasha eyed her. “I was thinking how much I wish this was an empanada.” She held up the last bite of her knish and popped it into her mouth.

“I love empanadas,” Diana said seriously. “I once ate twenty empanadas. I was very drunk.”

“I didn’t know the gods could get drunk.” Natasha brushed crumbs off her skirt.

“Don’t be silly. The gods love wine. And at any rate, I am only half god. The gods are not more than human, as some like to think. They are only more human—more desire, more violence, more sadness.” She smiled. “More alcohol.”

“What does it take to get you drunk?” It took ten shots of vodka to get Natasha buzzed. Half synthetic, half practice.

“A special circumstance. Or a very good case of wine. Or both.”

Natasha noted this mentally. If Diana could get drunk, it was possible she was a lesser asset than the Soldier. He could not get drunk. It had been a biological triumph.

His healing factor was not as advanced, but his speed—if he got the drop on Diana . . . The image burst in Natasha’s mind. A drop from above, a garrote. Diana’s head coming free before her eyes could widen in surprise.

That was probably how they would do it.

She looked at Diana. “Perhaps we will have to find a special circumstance. Since I am too poor to buy you a very good case of wine.” She held up the knish wrapper.

“Government salary, yes,” Diana said. “I understand. I worked for the French Ministry of Culture for several years after the Second World War.”

“I didn’t know that.” Natasha tilted her head. Diana had participated in both World Wars, first among the British, then among the French—there were photographs of her from each era, apparently undoctored. For a while Natasha’s bosses had considered the possibility that there were multiple Wonder Women, as there were multiple Widows, but of late this theory had been abandoned, as there seemed to be no hierarchy to which she reported, aside from her occasional excursions with the League.

Natasha liked the way she said French _. Frainsh,_ she echoed in her head, wondering again at Diana’s thoroughly muddled accent.

“It was a very good job—for a while.” Diana glanced down at her hands. “The French people remind me sometimes of my home. They care about what matters, but they cannot let go of their own practicality. It is the language of romance, spoken by people who cannot bear romantic notions.”

“You sound like a rejected lover.”

Diana laughed. “I am, in a way. I love them, but we are all wrong for each other. Yet I go back again and again . . . and kiss them on the mouth.” Natasha raised an eyebrow and Diana added, “It was a metaphor for eating. Bread and cheese, I get very fat whenever I go.”

Natasha bit her lip as Diana watched, looking pleased with herself for almost having made Natasha laugh.

“Come to dinner with me,” Diana said after a moment. “I like you very much. I’d like to talk more while I’m in the city.”

Natasha considered this offer. “I have a condition.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

Natasha scowled at her. “I want to fight you.”

Diana burst into a grin. “How inhospitable.”

“I don’t have anyone to spar with,” Natasha told her. “I sit on my ass all day in the senator’s office, taking phone calls. You must have to practice. I want to practice with you.”

“I don’t have to practice,” Diana said. “It’s all costume. I’m like Batman, with the little throwing stars and the fancy boots.”

Natasha sighed.

“OK, OK,” Diana said, holding up her hands. “But then you must let me take you somewhere with food that arrives already unwrapped.”

“Where should I meet you?” 

“At the League building,” Diana told her. “Seven p.m. Security will want to know what you look like.” She dug in her coat pocket and pulled out a Polaroid camera.

“Just tell them I look like a secretary.” Natasha covered her face with her hands.

“But you don’t really look like a secretary.” Diana held the camera to her eye. “Come on, it’s only a photo.”

“I hate photos.” Natasha dropped her hands, sensing inevitability.

The shutter sounded; Diana pulled the photo from the camera and shook it as Natasha’s shoulders relaxed. “There. Not so bad.” She held up the photograph.

Natasha watched as the image appeared. She looked flat-lipped and annoyed, half her face in shadow on the bench.

 _Click_.

A second photo fell into Diana’s lap. Natasha jumped.

“This one is much more you,” Diana said, studying it.

“No more photos,” Natasha said, taking the camera from her.

“Take one of me,” Diana said. She arranged herself on the bench, her windbreaker falling over one shoulder.

Natasha eyed her. “All right,” she said, and brought the camera to her face. Diana smiled.

The photograph was beautiful. Natasha could see tiny crows’ feet around Diana’s eyes. She shook it one last time and held it out.

“No, you keep it,” Diana said. “It’s only fair, since I’ve got two of you.”

Natasha tucked the photo into her coat pocket silently. “See you tonight.”

“Tonight, Nat,” Diana said. She leaned in—she was wearing Cellier Bandit, an old perfume put out during the war, full of leather and tuberose. Underneath that, a funny smell of bananas. Natasha knew that smell. Pure explosives smelled like bananas.

Natasha’s heart beat faster.

Diana kissed the air on either side of her face, then leaned away again.

“I’ve got to go back to work,” Natasha said, unable to think of anything else to say.

“I know.” Diana smiled at her once more, then turned away, hitching her windbreaker back up over her shoulder.

Natasha picked up her purse and straightened her skirt as she stood up.

“Who’s your friend?” Bert called from the knish stand.

“Wonder Woman,” Natasha said, deadpan.

“Fuck you, don’t tell me, then,” Bert said, going back to his book.


	4. Chapter 4

The League never allowed tourists to photograph the exterior of the Hall of Justice. For this reason, many Americans believed it was located on the Mall because of its white-columned façade and central fountain which somewhat resembled the Reflecting Pool.

In fact the Hall sat on a bit of manicured lawn at a corner of the Dupont Circle neighborhood near the Metropolitan Police Department off U Street, far from the sprawling avenues near the Capitol. When Bruce Wayne (for S.H.I.E.L.D. had long had access to the details of the trust) had purchased the land seventeen years ago, it had been part of a struggling area long since abandoned by the kinds of families that had built mansions along Connecticut Avenue. Wayne had done it as a statement: the Justice League was on the side of the people, not their leaders.

Now, Natasha thought with amusement, the League didn’t allow photographs because the neighborhood was instantly recognizable to DC natives as the queerest part of the city. Lambda Rising had been put up just a few years after the Hall, on the very Connecticut Avenue that used to host Calvin Coolidge. U Street was sometimes compared to Greenwich Village in New York—a little bustling neighborhood full of queers and the kinds of people who liked to imagine they were impoverished and call themselves bohemians.

Natasha never went to this neighborhood if she could help it, although she was sometimes called upon by Ivan and S.H.I.E.L.D. alike to tail married politicians to bars. Every disguise it demanded was distasteful to her. The bars for women had a curious 1950s hangover to them. The butch-or-femme dress code was no longer enforced, but it persisted in cliquish atmosphere, so that Natasha had to don one of the four costumes available to her or be left alone at the end of the bar. Menswear didn't fit her exaggerated curves; retro dresses attracted the wrong kind of woman and so did leather; and she could not bring herself to impersonate the political bohemians who gave impassioned speeches about the apathy of the population when it came to AIDS—and then told her that the youth movement was so much more real in Russia.

That evening she went home to her tiny 11th Street studio and dressed in a neon-pink leotard and tights over which she buttoned a pair of jeans. It had started snowing on her way home, so she added thick socks, leg warmers, and a pair of steel-toed boots, as well as her best gray overcoat and a scarf. She ate a sandwich standing up over her sink, then hurried down the stairs to catch the bus to U Street.

The Hall of Justice crouched at the end of the street, a hulking Art Deco monstrosity. The fountain had been tarped for winter, but the ugly gold statue poked through in the middle, like a finger. Natasha wrinkled her nose and went up the marble steps, stepping cautiously over the growing drifts of snow. The lobby was large and just as marbled, but the employees, careless of the aesthetic, had put down nubby blue rugs on the floor leading to the front desk. Natasha tried not to laugh when she saw that in an alcove above the receptionist was a gold-plated statue of Wonder Woman. Batman and Aquaman were in their own alcoves farther down the right-hand wall.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked. He was blue, Natasha noted. She wondered if it was an Inhuman attribute or if it was just for effect. She wouldn’t put it past Wayne to require all the receptionists to wear body paint.

“I have an appointment with Wonder Woman,” she said, brushing her coat off. “Natalie Rushman?”

He checked the computer, which took several minutes as she glanced around the Hall, clocking the positions of the cameras. There were twelve. Blind spots behind all the statues, at the curve of the vaulted ceiling, and at three points along the walls. Two cameras pointed too obviously toward a hidden exit near one of the columns and another behind the second receptionist’s desk.

“OK,” he said at last. “Ms. Rushman. Got you right here. Unfortunately Princess Diana has been delayed in a meeting. She’ll meet you in Sector C of the gymnasium in fifteen minutes or so. If you’d like to go down ahead of time, Robert can take you.” A large man with ordinary brown skin appeared beside him. Natasha didn’t peg him as an asset.

“Thanks,” she said, and took Robert’s arm. He turned and led her toward the bank of gold-plated elevators. “What’s with the gilding?” she asked Robert. “It’s blinding in here.”

Robert just shrugged and stepped into the elevator, pressing the button for GC. She noticed there was no bell when the doors opened, nor when they closed. They sank into the building in padded-wall silence.

When the doors opened, Natasha blinked. She’d felt the elevator dropping, carrying them underground, but Sector C was outside—and not the outside of DC in December. She stepped out into a terraced garden larger than a football field, with a lush, sprawling oval lawn in the center. White stone walls marked the edges of the space, most of them crawling with ivy or a plant Natasha couldn’t identify which boasted dozens of tiny bruised red fruit. The far end of the garden disappeared behind a tangled growth of lemon trees. Beside her was a kind of amphitheater, with curved stone seating; a twisted tree heavy with unripe olives stood in front of it, as if declaiming. Natasha took a few steps toward the white benches and sat down heavily.

Too late, she realized the elevator doors were closing, as quietly as they had before. She opened her mouth to say “Wait, Robert!” But it was useless; he was gone.

Natasha looked up, cataloging her surroundings. The sky was the deep blue-purple of twilight. Bees buzzed around the vines at the wall behind her.

It all _smelled_ real.

She couldn’t see any cameras.

Natasha took off her coat, rolled it into a ball, and set it beside her. She unlaced her boots and pulled them off as well, and then her jeans. Softly, she padded across the amphitheater toward the enormous bougainvillea which had draped itself across the top of the elevator, and tucked her clothes into the tree, careful not to crush any of the blooms. Once she was certain they were out of sight, she climbed the benches of the amphitheater and stretched her wrist out over the top of the garden wall. Her fingers turned purple. After a moment, she felt a flat surface.

So it was an illusion.

Satisfied, Natasha climbed down again and took a running start across the grass, just for the thrill of it. There was something absolutely satiating about warm grass on her bare feet in December. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been barefoot outside, not even in the summer.

When she reached the lemon-tree grove, she crept between the trunks, ducking her head now and again, until she got far enough in that she could barely see out. The trees were flimsy, but Natasha was light-footed; she pulled herself into the crook of the sturdiest one she could find and slung her body out along the leaf-thick branch. The smell of lemons rose around her. Natasha licked her lips involuntarily. Then she made herself relax her muscles, slitted her eyes, and slowed her heart rate.

It was nearly half an hour before there was a rustle from across the garden. Diana’s voice came from the direction of the elevator: “Nat, I’m so sorry I’m late—”

Natasha waited.

“Nat?”

The garden went quiet again, except for the rustling of the trees in the manmade breeze. A moth settled on Natasha’s forearm.

Where was Diana? Natasha strained to see through the stand of trees with her eyes still half-lidded.

There—by the wall. She was in full armor this time, no spectacles or windbreaker. Diana glanced toward the stand of trees, then back toward the elevator. Finally she went toward the trees, keeping near the wall.

Natasha held her breath. Diana passed four steps away . . . three . . .

She fell out of the tree feetfirst, landing backward on Diana’s shoulders, crouching, and seizing the sword hanging from the scabbard on her back. Diana shrieked and groped at her. Natasha leaped forward, pushing off Diana’s shoulders and hitting the ground at a dead run, the sword in one hand. Diana had been knocked to the ground by Natasha’s momentum, but she was up immediately, barreling after her.

“Putain!” Diana exclaimed. “Oh, mother . . . fuck—”

Natasha grinned, ducked her head, and rolled sideways. But instead of tripping, Diana vaulted over her, landing a dozen feet away with barely an exhale of effort.

Natasha ran for it again.

She had only twenty seconds of freedom before her lungs were crushed and she was yanked skidding backward across the grass, her heels digging up divots in the turf. The lasso. “See how far you get!” Diana crowed, reeling her in. Natasha scrambled backward; then, with the few inches of slack she’d bought herself, lunged forward, flinging the sword over the edge of the wall. The lasso got her at the height of her lunge, making her huff as the air escaped her body for the second time. _That’s going to be a weird bruise_ , she thought as she hit the ground on her back.

“You little shit,” Diana told her, having watched the sword disappear into the gap between the fake sky and the stone wall. “That’s going to take me forever to fish out. It is the sword of Athena!”

“I wish you would stop all the goddess shit,” Natasha said, then choked; she’d meant to say _Sure_.

Diana smirked. Her eyes flicked toward the lasso. Natasha glanced down.

So it had more uses than being unbreakable and fooling fingerprint scanners.

Natasha flipped herself up, wrapped her legs around Diana’s neck, and yanked her to the ground. Diana went down easily, rolling them until she was on top. Then she paused. “I like your leotard,” she said, panting. “It was like a very pink cat fell on me. I was terrified.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, but her mouth said, “I like your crown.”

Diana’s eyebrows went up.

“Get me out of this thing,” Natasha demanded.

“Get yourself out of it,” Diana told her, and punched her in the stomach, just where she’d been bruised.

Natasha remembered to make a noise of pain. She didn’t, usually; silence had been trained into them in the Room. But that kind of thing made her tutors more identifiable. Unless challenged, Natasha used mostly Eastern fighting styles and American military maneuvers, the sort of things Natalie Rushman could have learned had she dedicated a decade or two to close-combat training in America.

Only the noise didn’t come out of her throat this time.

She growled—that one did emerge—and grabbed a handful of Diana’s hair, slamming her face down into the grass. This distracted her long enough for Natasha to yank the knot loose on the lasso and hurl herself across the turf.

Diana was already on her feet, and they circled each other. Natasha nodded toward the gleaming rope lying on the lawn. “That’s a cute trick,” she said. “What do you call it? The truth lasso?”

Diana frowned. “The Lasso of Truth.”

Natasha took that opportunity to fly at Diana’s belly, but Diana only sidestepped onto the stone wall, pushed off it with both feet, and crashed down onto Natasha’s back in the grass. “If you break my back,” Natasha said into the dirt, “you’ll be stuck with a very large bill. The medical system in America is not good.”

“I didn’t break your back, you baby,” Diana said, pulling her to her feet. Natasha swayed a little, then feinted. Diana didn’t move. “Where did you say you worked?”

“At Senator Waskin’s office,” Natasha said. “I take dictation.”

“I meant your other job.” Diana lunged forward, low to the ground. Natasha only leaned back. “The one that has you breaking into people’s offices at night.”

“Don’t you already know?” Natasha landed a jab on Diana’s cheek, which annoyed her.

“Nick Fury,” she said. “He has his hands everywhere.”

Diana went for a kick, but left her chest unguarded. Natasha seized her leg, bent it around her back, and flipped Diana.

“Are you letting me win?” she demanded.

Diana blew her hair out of her face. “A little.”

“Don’t,” Natasha said firmly.

Diana shrugged. “OK.” She drove her shoulder into Natasha’s stomach, sitting up, and heaved her over her shoulders; Natasha tried in vain to gain purchase on her hair or her arms. Diana crouched and pushed off from the ground. Natasha’s vision swam. The ground tilted wildly below her. They were fourteen feet in the air or more.

Then Diana let go.

Natasha slammed into the ground, too disoriented to make a more graceful landing. Diana bent over her, eyebrows drawn together. “Nat?”

“I’m fine,” Natasha said.

“Let me check you for broken bones.” Diana began to fumble around Natasha’s leg warmers.

“I don’t have any broken bones,” Natasha mumbled, but couldn’t be bothered to move as Diana’s fingers moved over the muscles of her calves, then her thighs.

“I’m sorry,” Diana said at last, skimming her fingers over Natasha’s collarbones.

Natasha lifted her hand and caught Diana’s fingers in her own.

Diana met her eyes. She was striking at a distance; up close she was almost shockingly pretty, with a fine-boned balance to her face that was at odds with her indestructible skin.

Neither of them made any sound. At last Diana kissed her.

Natasha’s body pressed up toward her, lighting her bruises on fire. Diana pinned her hands to the dirt, holding her in place as she kissed her so fiercely Natasha could barely breathe.

After a moment, Diana’s lips slipped away from Natasha’s mouth as she buried her face in Natasha’s neck, shoulders trembling. Natasha sucked in air. “Cameras,” she said, when she could.

Diana glanced up. “In here? There aren’t any.”

Natasha stared at her. “Put on the truth lasso.”

“The Lasso of Truth,” Diana said automatically, then: “What for?”

“Because your boss keeps tabs on my boss,” Natasha said, “and vice versa.”

Diana made a little scoffing noise in her throat. “All right,” she said, knee-walking over to where she had abandoned the lasso. She caught it up and looped it twice around her finger. “There aren’t any cameras in here. Good?”

“Put it around your waist,” Natasha said. “Maybe it only works that way.”

“It works any way,” Diana said, but she made a loop and slipped it over her arms, tightening it around her waist. “No cameras in here. Are you—”

Natasha surged forward and grabbed the other end of the lasso, pulling Diana in. “I’m happy,” she said, kissing her again.

“Oh, good, it’s true,” Diana said, throwing her arms around Natasha.

 

 

Natasha lay in the grass, thighs soaked. The sky above her had turned purple-black, thick with clouds. “Where is this?” she asked, propping her head up on one hand. The other worked between Diana’s legs.

Diana laughed, a funny, bubbling, half-hysterical noise. “Themyscira. Not really. We don’t have fireflies there.”

Natasha noticed them at last, winking in the dark.

“Don’t stop,” Diana begged.

Natasha slowed. “I thought you were going to take me to dinner,” she said. “It’s not good manners to tie your guests up with their own shoelaces and make them cry.”

“I’ll buy you a dozen dinners,” Diana said. “I’ll buy you new shoelaces.”

“No,” Natasha said, “I think I’ll keep them. I want to remember this.” She pulled back, then pushed in again. Diana laughed uncontrollably, then shrieked a little.

“Nat,” she said, “oh—”

Natasha forgot about dinner again.

 

 

Diana had rooms at the Hall of Justice, but never slept there. She preferred to stay with friends or in a hotel, she told Natasha. They sat on Diana’s enormous bed at the InterContinental, which hadn’t blinked at the one a.m. room-service call. Before them on the mattress were two half-eaten platters of whitefish and new potatoes.

Diana tucked her hair behind her ears and glanced over at Natasha, who was steadily working her way through the whitefish. “Tell me what you are thinking.”

“I’m thinking,” Natasha said, not looking up, “that you laugh when you come, and it’s very good and I like it a lot.”

“You don’t think it’s undignified?” Diana suggested. “Some people are extremely put off by it. They think I’m laughing at them.”

“No one’s ever laughed at me in bed.” Natasha shoved a tiny potato into her mouth, chewing industriously.

“No, I can’t imagine they have.”

Natasha said around her potato, “Are you saying I’m not funny?”

Diana shook her head.

“Because your tone, you know, it was implying—”

“OK, I won’t imply,” Diana told her. “You’re not very funny. I don’t look at you and think, ‘Nat whatever-your-name-is, full of jokes.’ Are you hurt?”

Natasha tipped her head to one side. “No,” she said finally.

“Exactly. You have other strengths.” Diana tucked one of her legs more firmly under the other and sat up straighter. “Are you staying over, ma crevette?”

“Your shrimp?” Natasha repeated.

“It’s a nice nickname . . .” Diana protested. “It’s very nice in French. Also, you’re short, you know, it works in English too.”

Natasha decided to ignore this. “I can’t.”

Diana put her dinner aside and crawled over to take Natasha’s plate as well, setting it on the floor. “Why not?” she asked, picking up Natasha’s hand.

“Work,” Natasha said, closing her eyes as Diana trailed her fingertips over the inside of Natasha’s wrist.

“Which work?”

“Both.” Natasha opened her eyes. “Sometimes I want to quit.”

Diana watched her, black eyes soft.

“I’m not like you,” Natasha said. “I’m a soldier. I only take orders.”

“I have been a soldier too,” Diana said. “Many times. It’s a harder job than what I do.”

“I don’t mind hard jobs,” Natasha said. “I know that I’m a tool. I know that. I don’t mind being . . . put to use. Only I want it to be for something useful. I don’t see useful yet. I only see money.”  

“In S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

Natasha pressed her lips together. Then she said, all in a rush, “I don’t think I’m there to kill the senator. I think I’m there to be his bodyguard.”

“What do you mean?” Diana left off stroking her wrist.

Natasha shook her head and unfolded her legs, getting off the bed. “I can’t see you again.”

“I don’t need a masquerade,” Diana said. Natasha’s head jerked up, but Diana’s expression was serene. “I know you do not say anything without meaning to, Nat. If you want me to look into the senator without Fury knowing, I’ll do it. No need to threaten to leave me.”

Natasha paused. Then she dropped her boots and pushed Diana back down onto the mattress. Diana went down smirking.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains depictions of violence.

 

“What about you?” the old man asks. “What’s your name again?”

“Bedisa,” Natasha replies. “What about me what?”

“What music do you listen to? The Beatles?”

Natasha laughs. “That’s my mother’s music. She dances in the kitchen to ‘Hey Jude.’”

“Then you listen to these new ones? Time Machine?”

“No, no.”

Natasha turns her head. The train has entered the valley between the two mountains. Before, you could hardly see out of the dirty, insect-smeared windows; now the lush green hillsides surround them. There are wildflowers near the tracks, bobbing in the wake of their momentum.

“Then what’s cool these days? Tell me, I don’t know anymore. My daughter moved away, so I’m out of touch.”

Natasha shifts in her seat, leaning forward. “I love Bruce Springsteen,” she says.

“Who’s that?” He rests his bearded chin in his hands.

“He sings ‘Thunder Road.’”

“I never heard it.”

“Never?” She glances out the window again. The mountain on the right looms above, so close that she can only just see the dusting of snow at its peak. “OK, wait a second.”

He watches as she fishes in her messenger bag. She keeps the Walkman cassette in a silk toiletries bag stuffed with cotton, so it won’t get broken. It takes her a minute to untangle the headphones.

The old man bursts into a yellow-toothed grin when she arranges the headphones on his ears. He pats them gently, helping her put them in place. Their hands touch. “Ready?” she says too loudly. The woman across the aisle shoots her a look.

Natasha presses PLAY. The old man closes his eyes as “Thunder Road” begins.

They’re almost at the tunnel.

The old man opens his eyes after a moment and lifts his hands. He plays the piano on Natasha’s knees.

You like it? she mouths.

“I feel cool again,” he tells her.

Blackness washes over the train as they enter the tunnel. “The lamps are out,” Natasha hears someone murmur.

She fishes in her bag again.

The old man taps the headphones and points to her, raising his eyebrows. She shakes her head, pulling out her kerchief and tying it over her face.

“I love it,” he says, drawing the brief ire of the woman across the aisle again.

“I’m glad,” Natasha tells him. She pulls out her knives and cuts his throat.

He doesn’t have time to make a noise, only slumps over. In the meantime the train car has slowed. No one has noticed Natasha’s knives yet. Someone says, “Are we moving?”

Natasha stands up, crosses the aisle, and cuts the woman’s throat as well, careful not to hit bone.

Her daughter opens her mouth to scream. Natasha stops her.

“Hey!” a man barks from behind. Natasha throws her knife backward; he falls without a sound. _Keep quiet, keep quiet_ , she tells herself. _What’s your lesson? Use the eyes in the back of your head._

She throws another knife, spins, retrieves the first, and cuts the throat of the man’s wife, who’s reaching for his body.

There were fourteen people in the car when she got on. Eight, seven, six. Five. She’s been too slow; she has to speak to the last four, a family. “Don’t scream,” she tells them. She kills them in order of noise.

Natasha surveys the scene. She feels a curious itching at the back of her neck, like she’s forgotten something.

The door to the car swings open. She doesn’t hear footsteps. He doesn’t have footsteps. She thinks he’s like Peter Pan, needs his shadow sewn back on. She turns so that she can see the car he’s coming from, just before the door shuts: bodies arranged neatly in their seats, blood washing the wooden floor. No bullets; Ivan doesn’t want casings.

His eyes above the kerchief are very blue. “Ready to go, lisichka?” he asks. It’s what he calls all the ballerinas.

“Were you on the roof?” she asks.

He frowns. “Did you hear me?”

“No.” Often she pictures him as a baby, with those eyes.

Natasha unties her kerchief, takes off her jacket, and wraps it around one of the bodies.

“Is this yours?” the Winter Soldier asks, picking up the Walkman. It’s still piping _Born to Run_ into the old man’s ears.

“I knew I forgot something,” she says, trying to play it off.

He pulls the headphones off the old man’s head and hands the Walkman back to her. Natasha tucks it carefully into her makeup back among the cotton balls. “Do you know what it is?” she asks him.

“No.” He heads for the door.

She tags along behind him. “It’s a Walkman. I won it two weeks ago in a bet. Want to see how I did it?”

They’re out on the tracks now. “We don’t have time,” he says, taking out a little silver marble from some inner pocket of his jacket.

“No, that’s the trick,” Natasha tells him. “Give it to me.” She snatches the marble from his palm, puts it in her mouth, and spits it at the open window to the train’s engine car. There’s an ear-popping noise, and then the engine bursts into flames. The rest of the cars catch fire in quick succession.

Natasha looks over at the Soldier to gauge his reaction.

“Not bad, doll,” he says in English.

Her mouth drops open. He’s never spoken English to her before. She was told he didn’t speak it.

He blinks, looking back at the flames.

“I missed you,” she replies, also in English.

The Soldier glances at her. “Our friend is here.” He stalks down the tracks toward the glimmer of headlights around the curve of the tunnel.

There aren’t any windows in the back of the bread truck. Natasha wakes forty-five minutes later with her head in the Soldier’s lap. His cold hand is in her hair, stroking gently. “I didn’t mean to sleep,” she mutters.

“You always sleep, after,” he answers from above her, without any particular inflection.

“Keep doing that,” she orders him. His hand spasms in her hair. “Please,” she adds.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. English again.

Natasha holds very still while he strokes her head, eyes wide. “I love you,” she says into his thigh, her voice muffled by the fabric of his trousers.

The cold hand doesn’t stop in her hair until they reach the dance studio.

 

 

Natasha opened her eyes, grasping for the dream. _English_ , she thought to herself. _He spoke English to me_. The memory was gone as quickly as a dream. She knew it was important. It was the second to last time she worked with him.

Who?

The Soldier, probably. She lost days and days to the Soldier.

 _They'll make something_ , she told herself again.  _In the future, they'll invent a way for me to get them back._

Her face was covered in tears. She sat up, the elderly mattress creaking. Ivan’s guest bed had sheets patterned with daisies. He was home; the kettle whistled in the other room.

When she came in, he was already at the breakfast nook, holding a cup of tea and reading the sports section. “Did you have a nice nap?” he asked.

She poured herself a cup of tea. It was the only thing that got rid of the licorice taste. “I thought you would be pleased,” she said. “I was in her hotel room.”

“I’ve warned you before,” he told her, “about your tendency to get involved.”

On their last mission together, the Soldier shot the target through Natasha. She didn't have the scar, but she did have the memory. Ivan let her keep that one.

“Yes,” she said, wrapping her hands around the cup of tea. “I know you have.”

“I’m looking out for you,” Ivan went on, lifting the newspaper. The clock on his wall ticked away. 


	6. Chapter 6

The year she'd lived in Sweden, Natasha had become fond of going for naked swims in the freezing lake that abutted her benefactor's property. The pool at the YWCA in Washington, DC, did not much resemble Möja—for one thing, everyone was required to wear a bathing suit in order to enter—but while doing her rest laps Natasha often stared up at the industrial ceiling from which concrete hung frozen like candlewax, and imagined she was staring down instead, into the depths of the lake, where the mud had been stirred by her frantic activity. 

She was on her fifty-second lap when Fury spoke up. 

“You don’t sleep much, do you?”

“No,” Natasha said pleasantly, still floating on her back. “You don’t either.”

“Yeah,” Fury said. “It’s hell on my skin. I get dry patches.”

“Try fish oil.”

He dragged one of the plastic chairs over to the edge of the pool—not close enough for her to seize one of its legs. “I noticed you’ve stopped going to Dr. Sachdeva.”

“Yes. She approved me for field.” Natasha stretched her arms over her head, then swept them down to her hips, like a snow angel in the water.

“Yeah, see . . .” In her peripheral vision, Fury shifted blurrily. “My personal thought is that when I have an agent who has defected from a hostile power which abused and experimented on her from childhood, I would find it wise to override the opinion of one Yale psych grad from San Francisco, and instead send that agent back to talk therapy for longer than three months.”

“Why didn’t you just put in George’s log that he should order me to attend further sessions?” Natasha asked.

“Would you have gone?” Fury squinted at her.

“Of course.” Natasha swung her legs down and began to tread water, counting the seconds silently. “You’re my superior. If you think I need more therapy, then I’m happy to attend.”

Fury watched her bicycle. “Maybe I should get all my agents from the KGB.”

“I wasn’t KGB,” Natasha reminded him. “Not really. Unless you consider yourself a member of the CIA.”

Fury laughed. “OK. Point taken. Here’s something you could talk about in therapy: How the fuck can you love swimming?”

“After what happened to me, you mean?” Natasha didn’t smile, but her face suggested it. “I don’t love swimming. I do it because it’s good exercise, and the YWCA is near my apartment.”

“You’re not afraid?”

Now she did smile. “Are you afraid of grenades?”

“Fuck no,” Fury said.

 

 

“I looked into your boss,” Diana said on the phone two days later.

Natasha leaned against the side of the pay phone booth, then peeled herself away again. It was sticky. “And?”

“I think you might need to quit both of your jobs,” Diana answered softly. “Nat, this is not a good situation for a soldier to be in.”

“Tell me.” She twined the cord around her finger, pulled it tight.

“This man . . . well, my line is secure. Is yours?”

“No telephone is secure,” Natasha said. “Don’t be stupid. If it’s so bad, say it to me in person.”

“I want to,” Diana said, her voice dropping. “Only I can’t, until tomorrow. I’m out with the League. And—”

“OK, then . . .”

“—and I want you to be able to leave quickly if you need to. If something happens.”

“Will something happen?”

“I don’t know.” Natasha thought she heard voices on the other end. “Nat, S.H.I.E.L.D. set up a fund for the senator. He’s funneling money through a contact in Canaan.”

“Money for what?” Natasha asked over the noise of a motorcycle passing on the street nearby.

“Arms,” Diana said impatiently. “So that Canaan becomes even more unstable. He and several others helping him hold interests in Hammer Industries.”

“Vibranium,” Natasha said. “If Canaan falls, it will be harder to secure Wakandan borders. I thought the rumors of Vibranium were only rumors.”

“They’re not rumors.” Diana sounded as if she’d seen it firsthand.

“And S.H.I.E.L.D. is using him as their American face.” Natasha unwrapped the cord from her finger. The skin had turned a fat, dark purple.

“Among others.”

“Important enough to use. But they must not care about him that much, or they’d have assigned someone higher up,” Natasha murmured. “Or they don’t think anyone knows.”

“I think you and I—and Bruce—and the senator—we are the only four.”

“Five,” Natasha said. “Nick Fury.”

Diana blew out a breath on the phone. “Can you get yourself fired, ma crevette? And then S.H.I.E.L.D. will demote you?”

Natasha didn’t answer for a moment. “S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t demote agents, Diana,” she said at last.

She stood in the phone booth for almost a minute, ear pressed tightly to the receiver, listening to Diana’s breathing.

 

 

Natasha went back to the office after that. It was almost amusing to look at Waskin’s face and imagine him as some covert arms dealer, although she knew he was only a greedy man who thought of himself as putting his many business contacts in touch. That was a funny thing about America; it was left over from the Puritans, maybe, this sense that moneymaking was a virtuous activity. Americans took the same kind of pride in it that housewives took in preparing dinner. Waskin was proud of his business acumen. His mother had spent years making sure he had some so that he would be a suitable receptacle for the family’s wealth, which had weathered six generations; in this way money was more real to him than death.

Her shift passed uneventfully. At seven o’clock she packed her things and went home, leaving him behind the pleated glass door to his office, still on the phone.

Her apartment on 11th Street was quiet except for the noise of the radiator and the pipes, banging with the sound of her neighbor’s shower. There was no evidence that anyone but she herself had been in the studio since she’d left at four a.m. that morning—the dust on the windowsill was undisturbed, and the alarm she’d set at the door had not been tripped.

All the same, there was a ring lying on her pillow.

Natasha dropped her purse casually on the floor and went to pick up the ring. It was plain silver, with a tiny circle etched into the underside. She tried it on her index finger, but it wouldn’t fit; it had been made to fit her third finger, where a wedding ring might go.

She put it on and held out her hand, bridelike. After a moment, Natasha twitched her third finger. A tiny needle emerged from the ring, like a proboscis.

She twitched her finger again. The needle withdrew. She was only a woman again, alone in her studio, wearing a plain silver ring.

 

 

Natasha lay on her couch with the television on, volume low. Her eyes were closed. It was nearly seven in the morning. Fury had been right; Natasha did not need as much sleep as ordinary people. Sometimes she only rested and allowed her mind to wander. Now she imagined herself back in the well-designed series of rooms where they kept Dr. Sachdeva. There was a ficus in the corner and Dr. Sachdeva’s hair smelled overwhelmingly of butterscotch.

Fury would instruct Dr. Sachdeva to ask her about the swimming pool. _Are you afraid of water,_ Dr. Sachdeva would want to know.

No. She wouldn’t be so direct.

_Why does Director Fury think you might be afraid of water?_

The television intruded on her imagination; Natasha switched their location to a sports bar. The underside of the table was gummy. She was holding a beer.

_Because I drowned._

She imagined saying it as flatly as she felt it. In the actual sessions she always had to add the emotion in, which took too much effort for a daydream.

 _Who drowned you?_ Dr. Sachdeva would ask, her face conjuring a series of ill-intentioned Russian bogeymen, or maybe an evil parent.

 _No one drowned me,_ Natasha answered as a cheer went up around the bar for a scored goal. _I fell through the ice when I was three._

And her body had been perfectly intact, blood frozen in chunks inside hair-thin veins, so when it showed up at the morgue the coroner had flagged it, as he’d been instructed, and Ivan had driven down from Omsk and taken a look at it, her miniature corpse, and approved it for shipment to the facility where they had injected her with the Room serum. When she sat up, still blue, and vomited ice onto the table, her parents were at that moment burying some other little girl’s body, and so whoever she had been disappeared into the ground, and she became an orphan, or, as the rest of her new dead sisters were called, a Widow.

 _I don’t remember any of it_ , she decided she’d tell Dr. Sachdeva when she asked. _The important part is that I lived._

 

 

Natasha’s eyelids flickered and she heard the television clearly suddenly, as if the volume had been turned up: “. . . has just announced that he is resigning from Congress due to an undisclosed illness.”

The photo was still on the screen next to the reporter’s face. Senator Bill Waskin.


	7. Chapter 7

The senator’s office was already blurry with activity by the time Natasha arrived at seven forty-five. The chief of staff was in the senator’s office, talking on the phone at top volume as staff members hurried in and out, causing pileups at the door; four assistants clustered around the head secretary’s desk, trying to figure out the schedule for the following week between the senator’s exit and the replacement, who would be appointed by special election twenty-five hundred miles away.

Natasha stood at the fringe of this second knot of people. At the first break in argument, she said, “Um, do I—what do I—”

“I don’t care, Natalie,” the head secretary snapped. “Just don’t talk to the press.”

“Of course.” Natasha made sure to look stung. “I just wanted to know if this means I’m—I can’t come back? Are we all staying on for the replacement?”

“It’ll probably be Hunding,” Martha muttered.

“He can dream. Not enough name recognition,” Rachel said.

They went back to looking at the schedule. After a moment, Rachel twisted around and patted Natasha on the shoulder. “You have a job for now, anyway, until the replacement decides to reappoint. That won’t be for a month, most likely. What a shitshow”—this last seemingly directed at no one in particular, as Rachel turned back to the head secretary’s desk.

Natasha wandered over to her own desk. No one had taken out the trash overnight, and an empty yogurt container stared up at her from the can. She sat down in the chair and took off her shoes, mostly to see if anyone would notice. Nobody did.

 

 

Some hours later, Natasha put her shoes back on, having stared at a black computer screen for the intervening time, its bright green cursor blinking. She went out of the office, down the tiled hallway, and out into the back courtyard, where she sat on one of the ugly granite blocks that served as benches and pulled out a cigarette.

A lanky guy with a flat-top fade sat down next to her, pulling his bright pink coat around him even though it was forty-five degrees or more. “Hi, Oktober.”

Natasha blinked. “You must be George.”

He stuck out his hand. “Good ears. Nice to meet you in person.”

His handshake was as floppy as the rest of him. He grinned at her, revealing prominent front teeth. “I guess you know why we’re being introduced. Boss heard you lost your day job.”

She sucked on the cigarette. “I haven’t lost it yet. The replacement might keep me on.”

He stretched. “Well, that’s true. But he wants to move you anyway. The loss comes at a good time; he’s got something brewing in New York he’d like you on.”

Natasha looked out at the courtyard. Drifts of graying snow had been packed into hard hills here and there, with puddles marking the uneven ground between. “I hate DC,” she said finally.

“Well, good,” George said cheerfully, “because you can’t stay.”

She blew out smoke. “Are you from here?”

“No, Ohio. Why?”

“How does this compare to Ohio?”

“Ohio doesn’t really compare at all, to tell you the truth. Not to mention the ballet’s only half an hour away instead of three.”

Natasha turned to examine him. “You like the ballet?”

“I was in ABT until I injured out. This is my backup career.” He grinned.

Natasha recognized him all at once. “I’ve seen you dance. _Firebird._ You were all right.”

“High praise from a field agent, I guess,” George said, getting up to leave. He stuck his hands in his pockets and added, “Hey, listen, the boss wants to know. Do you have any idea what this illness is that’s knocked Waskin out?”

Natasha shook her head. “No one knows. He had a cardiologist visit recently. You could pull those records.”

“Got it. Thanks. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon. We’ve scheduled a pickup outside your apartment at eight tomorrow morning. Don’t worry about the landlord.”

George went away whistling something that sounded like Tiffany.

Natasha stayed where she was until her cigarette burned down. At last she got up and headed toward the street, making sure that George was really gone. Satisfied, she continued until she made it to the bank of pay phones near the public library. She dialed carefully, turning so that she could see anyone watching her.

“Yes?”

Natasha spoke quietly. “My other employer is moving me to New York. Tomorrow morning. I don’t have an address yet.”

There was silence on the other end for almost a minute. Natasha could hear the ticking of the clock behind his breathing. At last Ivan said, “Your parameters have changed. Acquisition isn’t feasible any longer, I’m afraid. It could take a decade to get so close again. I’d like you to focus on asset recovery with a delivery time of midnight tonight. You received the gift I sent you?”

Natasha made a fist inside her coat pocket. “Yes.”

“Do you remember it?”

She twitched, like a rat. “No. Am I . . . Am I supposed to?”

Ivan laughed. “Perhaps it’s better that you don’t. Mother will like having you home. Are you looking forward to it?”

“I can’t wait,” Natasha said, and hung up the phone. She breathed into her cupped hands for half a second, feeling her heart pound. She did want to see Russia again. She had thought she’d die here. She’d thought she would die half a dozen times, only it never happened. She went on living, with other people’s fingers wrapped around her wrists and ankles.

 

 

When she got back to her apartment, there was a message waiting on her answering machine. “Nat,” Diana’s voice said. “I heard what’s happened. I came back early to see you. Come to my hotel as soon as you can.”

Natasha dressed slowly, practical over the impractical: there were knives in each of her garters, and her bra held additional charges for her gauntlets. She slid the ring on.

It was strange how it could still hurt her to leave the places she lived. Other agents had said she’d grow out of it, but in fact she had only grown out of telling anyone about it. She hadn’t lied to George—she did hate DC. But it had been her home, and she would be gone from it in a matter of hours. She’d never see Bert at the knish stand again, or stand on her toes to reach the top cabinet in her badly designed apartment.

There was a train that left every night from Union Station. Sixteen hours to Montreal. She had a Canadian passport; she could use it and then ditch it, find another dead woman’s name to wear.

It was only a fantasy. She knew he would find her before she passed Philadelphia.

Natasha had watched the Soldier kill a Widow before. He cut her fingers off first, one every hour, then the feet.

He’d call her lisichka while he did it, she knew.

Next door her neighbor was blasting _Paid In Full_. Natasha leaned over the mirror to put her lipstick on. She wanted Diana to remember her mouth, when she remembered tonight; she wanted Diana to forget how her eyes had looked.


	8. Chapter 8

There was another fantasy she often thought of, the Natalie-fantasy, where she gave up her work altogether and moved to New Jersey and got a job at a place where only women worked, like maybe a nail salon or a department store, and when she bumped into the edge of a table she’d say “Ow ow ow” and people would make that face, the “Poor you” face, and she’d make it back, jokingly. “That’s gonna bruise,” she’d say, rubbing her hip. She’d never marry anyone, never love anyone or anything again, not even a dog, and so she would be whole forever, and have nice nails.

There were footsteps on the stairs. Natasha’s body tensed and she nudged the door to the bathroom closed. A few extra seconds of warning time, in case—

“Nat?” Diana called. A knock came at the door. “Nat, are you there?”

Her neighbor turned up _Paid In Full_ in protest. Nat edged out of the bathroom just as the doorknob rattled wildly and fell off. The door swung wide and Diana fell in, carried by her own momentum.

“Nat!” Diana exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, I will fix—”

“It’s all right,” Natasha said. “I’m not staying.” There was an odd moment of silence; Natasha had planned to surprise Diana at the hotel where she was staying and stage a desperate reunion on her king-sized bed, outlined against the white sheets. In her shabby apartment with its yellow walls and single window, Natasha knew she looked pale and tired, overdressed rather than sleekly styled. She went over to the door and tried to shut it, but without the doorknob it wouldn’t stay closed.

“Let me,” Diana said, and went over to the bookcase, picking it up easily even with Natasha’s collection of thrift-store thousand-page history books and ceramic cat tchotchkes. She set it down like an enormous doorstop, rattling the cats.

“Thank you,” Natasha said, “but now my landlord’s going to think I’ve disappeared because I’ve been murdered.”

Diana didn’t laugh. “I didn’t think you’d be here at all. When the senator resigned, I thought . . .” She trailed off, her dark eyes taking in Natasha’s clothes, the lipstick still held loosely in her palm.

“I report at eight a.m. tomorrow,” Natasha said quietly.

“They can’t,” Diana burst out. Natasha thought her indignance seemed reflexive. “It’s against the law—we will expose them—”

“Against what law?” Natasha touched Diana’s arm. “I’m not a US citizen. I’m not any citizen. The only people I belong to are S.H.I.E.L.D., and they can do with me what they like.”

“I won’t let them.” Diana was in full costume, and she had the heroine glow about her, like a halo. Natasha wondered if she could imitate it. Was it natural, or had Diana practiced it in the mirror, that front-of-the-novel gaze?

“There’s nothing you can do.” Natasha cast her eyes down. The first lie should seem automatic; the second should be dragged from her, so that it had the texture of truth.

Diana pressed forward, her height furthering the melodrama of their pose. She put her hands in Natasha’s hair. “Nat,” she started, but didn’t finish.

“I was getting ready to leave to say goodbye.”

Diana’s hands slid downward, across Natasha’s shoulders, her waist. “You dressed for me?”

Natasha only looked at her.

Diana bit her lip. “I like it very much,” she admitted. “Thank you.”

Now was the time, Natasha thought. Diana in her armor, Natasha in heels and lace like a damsel. Diana would bend to kiss her lips, and Natasha would be overcome, beg her to stay—to run away with her—

Diana knelt and pressed her face to Natasha’s belly. “I want you to come back to me,” she said into the fabric of her dress. She looked up at Natasha, the halo gone now; instead there was the flicker of an expression Natasha recognized as one of her own: it said Diana could see the bodies on the floor already, that her mouth tasted of iron. Kill them all for me, she meant. Come back bloody.

Natasha was frozen in place for a long second.

Diana shook her by the hips. “Do you promise?”

“Yes,” Natasha whispered, shocked, and Diana bit her thighs, too hard, so that Natasha reached out blindly for the wall. Diana’s hands found her underwear, which she had arranged so carefully only twenty minutes earlier, and yanked them down, but she pulled too hard and they tore. Natasha realized through the fog in her head that Diana must have been very careful with her when they had slept together before, more careful than Natasha had ever realized. Knives clattered to the floor. Then Diana’s mouth was on her and Natasha was gasping, clawing at the wall.

It was too much—but Natasha couldn’t get the words out to say so. A minute went past, and then another as she breathed, “Diana—Diana—”

Diana gripped Natasha’s hips and stood, as casually as if she weren’t balancing another woman on her shoulders. She carried Natasha to the bed, sprawling her out over the old plaid sheets which were nothing like the hotel-immaculate backdrop Natasha had imagined. Natasha was red-faced, panting, with her dress rucked up around her waist and her underwear hanging from one ankle, but Diana took her in with hands and eyes, both half-painful in their fervor.

She likes to feel she’s taken me apart, Natasha thought, her mind flailing after her lost scene. She likes me like this—telling the truth—

At once, with a horrible clarity, she knew what had to come next.

I can’t, she thought, it’s like the chair. I’ll be like him, fish-eyed, rote, she’ll strap me down—

But the strategist in her had already been through the alternatives. A dead calm seeped in and began to muffle the panic.

Diana felt her still. “What is it?”

“I want you to tie me up,” Natasha heard herself say.

Diana kissed her. “Anything,” she said, “anything.” She kissed Natasha three more times, impulsively, before she got up from the bed.

“No,” Natasha forced out, but couldn’t go any farther. She was afraid; she was too afraid.

Diana frowned. “What?”

“The lasso,” Natasha said, closing her eyes. “Do it with the lasso.”

Diana sat back on the bed, stroking Natasha’s hair. “Are you sure?”

Natasha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, forgetting about her lipstick until she saw the long streak of red across her skin, like a burn. She stared at it for a second, then remembered to look back at Diana. “I want you to know me,” she said finally.

Diana touched Natasha’s face, her cheekbones; one thumb slipped over Natasha’s bottom lip and was marked red, too. She traced her fingers down Natasha’s body. “All right,” she said. There was a strange look in her eyes, and she’d burned her perfume off; only that hot smell of explosives came off her now, an unsettling alien stink.

She isn’t human, Natasha thought, shrinking back against her drab little mattress.

The look went away as quickly as it came, and she felt immediately that she had imagined it.

“Take off your clothes,” Diana said, pulling at them. Natasha pulled her dress over her head and unhooked her bra. The bra made a clattering noise on the floor, and Diana raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps I should ask you what’s in that.”

“Is that what you want to know?”

Diana pressed her back onto the mattress, spreading her legs with her knee. “I’m not sure yet,” she said, pretending not to notice what she had done as she drew out the lasso and positioned Natasha’s wrists at the rungs of her headboard. “Tell me, Nat, what are you doing?”

The lasso looped once around Natasha’s wrists. She meant to say _What do you mean_ , but instead she blurted, “Fucking myself against you— _fuck_.”

Diana laughed. “What’s wrong? You don’t like to answer questions?”

“It’s exhausting,” Natasha said, red creeping up her throat.

Diana pinched her, and she squirmed. “Does that hurt?”

“No.” It’s a game, Natasha thought. It’s only a game.

Diana finished securing her wrists to the headboard and slipped a finger under the ties. “Is this too tight, ma crevette?”

 _Yes and no_ , Natasha thought, but she took a deep breath and said only, “No,” which was the most literal version of the truth. Nothing happened, except that Diana smiled sweetly at her. A flush of triumph swept over Natasha.

“Hmm,” Diana said, cocking her head. Her gaze traveled the length of Natasha’s body until it reached her sprawled legs. “Now you are so bare, and I haven’t undressed at all. Should I take this off?”

“No,” Natasha said, letting herself answer without thinking. The lasso seemed to like this; it loosened slightly. “I like the way it makes me feel next to you,” she went on mindlessly, trying to buy herself goodwill. “Like you’re made of stone. It’s cold.”

Diana smiled. “Then I won’t take it off.” She ground her shin-guard into Natasha, making her grip the rungs of the headboard and exhale. “This is a nice look on you,” she said, pressing her palm flat to Natasha’s breastbone. “This blush. Do you want me to keep going?”

“Yes,” Natasha gritted out, and Diana did, stopping only when Natasha arched.

“So easy,” Diana said, moving to straddle her.

“Did I ruin it?” Natasha said hoarsely, not opening her eyes.

“My armor? No. If it could be ruined by fucking, I would have ruined it long ago.”

Natasha exhaled, half-laughing. “I wish I could touch you,” she mumbled, the words slipping out in her distraction.

Diana leaned close, her long hair trailing over Natasha’s shoulder. “Here. I’ll do it for you.” She brushed her nose against Natasha’s cheek, lifted her head so that Natasha’s lips could find her jaw, pressing openmouthed kisses down her neck. “Good?”

“No,” Natasha said softly.

Diana studied her from several inches away. “What did you think of me when you first met me?”

Natasha breathed in and out, steadying herself. “I thought you were full of shit.”

Diana frowned and chuckled at the same time. “I wanted you to say, ‘I was a nice straight woman, but then . . .’”

“I’m not nice,” Natasha said.

“And straight?”

Natasha was silent; the lasso tightened. “I don’t know how to answer,” she said. “I’m not anything.”

“You’ve never been in love?”

“Not that I remember,” Natasha said; her throat burned.

“But you like me now,” Diana said, trailing her fingers over Natasha’s hips and thighs. “Now that you see I am not full of shit.”

Natasha laughed. “Yes.” The lasso loosened again.

“You think I’m beautiful?”

“Yes.” Natasha screwed up her face as Diana slipped her fingers into her.

“You like fucking me?”

“Too much,” Natasha breathed.

“Oh, too much.” Diana fucked her a little harder; it seemed to cost her barely any effort at all, even as Natasha writhed and jerked against the restraints.

“Hah,” Natasha exhaled. “I can’t—”

Diana slowed. “Another question,” she said. “Then I’ll make you come, Nat.”

Natasha’s hair had fallen over her sweaty face. She twisted, trying to brush it away.

“Why did you want me to use the lasso on you?”

Natasha stopped struggling. The impulse to answer rose like bile in her throat, but she forced herself to pick through her options. This was it, the only way Diana might go willingly. “I want you to run away with me,” she blurted at last. “But I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“That you won’t want to go with me.” The lasso tightened; this was only three-quarters of the truth. She wore the rest of it on her ring finger.

Diana’s eyes were wide. “Where would we go?”

“Russia,” Natasha said. The truth came more easily now, bubbling over her lips. “I have a contact there. S.H.I.E.L.D. is wary of the Soviets. It might be one of the few places they won’t interfere.”

But Diana was already shaking her head. Natasha’s stomach clenched. It was over—it was over—

“I won’t hide,” she said. “I am not afraid of Nick Fury. He has supported this corruption to further his military and threatened to kill you, but he won’t succeed. But I can hide you, if you do not wish to fight.”

“What?” Natasha said, still sickened.

“I’ll take you to my home,” Diana said. “Themyscira. It is hidden from most mortals. Only women live there, all warriors. They would like you, I think.”

Natasha felt her nakedness all at once. She opened her mouth and said nothing, despite the lasso.

“Do you want to go?” Diana asked earnestly, touching her face. “I promise you, no one would ever find you there. You would be free. Perhaps you could come back again, when Nick Fury is dead.”

Natasha’s face burned. Then tears began to slip over her cheeks, wetting her ears. She started, turning her head to the side.

Come back and live in New Jersey, she thought wildly, and everyone who knew me would be dead, except Diana.

“Nat,” Diana said worriedly, “Nat, let me take this off.” She reached over Natasha to yank at the knot binding her wrists to the headboard. The lasso slithered to the floor as Diana pulled Natasha up into a sitting position, rubbing the marks on her wrists. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” Natasha said, feeling as if the words came from very far away. She stroked Diana’s cheek, her ear. Distantly, she saw that she was using her left hand, that the warm metal of Ivan’s ring was resting against Diana’s neck, just near the vein which twitched there, under the skin.

“Do you want to go?” Diana asked again.

Natasha stared at her.

The bookcase exploded inward and the door burst open. Diana ducked just as Natasha rose onto her knees, instinctively seizing a knife from beside the bed. She meant to spring from the bed toward the man who had broken into the room, but her legs went out from under her. She fell back on the bed, gripping her neck. Something had hit her. Something had . . .

Blood streamed out between her fingers. The bed was soaked with it; Diana’s face was covered in spattered droplets. She was shouting something, at Natasha or at the man, it was impossible to tell.

 _Blood at the scene_ , Natasha thought nonsensically, then: It’s too much, I can’t be saved.

She twisted around, spraying more blood, and saw the shuriken buried in the wall above her head. It had clipped her. Had he meant to clip an artery?

No matter. Black crept in at the edges of her vision. Diana was climbing over her, shrieking at the man, pressing her fingers to Natasha’s neck.

Natasha closed her eyes. It was so strange to feel relief.


	9. Chapter 9

Diana let go of Natasha’s body as the blood slowed. Natasha’s eyes were closed, as if she had only passed out.

“She’s dead,” Diana said.

Bruce staggered, gripping the edge of the oven. “Fuck,” he said, glaring down at the hilt of the dagger sprouting from his shoulder. “She fucking got me.”

Diana rose from the bed, covered in blood, and Bruce hurried to add, “I didn’t mean to kill her. I only meant to hit the wall above her—but she was fast—she was a _spy_ , Diana.”

“I knew she was a spy,” Diana hissed. “Don’t you think I knew?”

“A Russian spy,” Bruce said, gritting his teeth. “She’s a double agent. I came here to tell you.”

“Of course she had ties to Russia,” Diana said. “I put the lasso on her and she said as much.” She sat down heavily on the couch, staining it. Then she put her face in her hands.

“Not just ties,” Bruce said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This whole fucking thing was a setup, so don’t mourn her too hard.” He leaned against the oven. “I looked into it like you asked me to. I didn’t have the whole story at first. Waskin was being funded by a shell organization. Not Fury. The Russians. She’s one of those Black Widows, Diana. She used this whole story to appeal to your outrage, to try to turn you against S.H.I.E.L.D. She wanted to absorb you into the organization.”

Diana was still.

“I can’t believe you fucked her,” Bruce said eventually, glancing over at Natasha’s sprawled body, where the blood was slowly oxidizing.

Diana got up from the couch, walked over to Bruce, and slapped him. It made a cracking sound in the empty room.

He rubbed his cheek. “Jesus. You’re welcome. We should probably get a cleanup crew in here. The police will be here any minute.” He cocked his head. “Actually, something should have happened by now.”

He was right; the room was eerily quiet. Not even the noise of the street could be heard from the window.

Diana got up and went over to Natasha’s body. “Apollo,” she said, looking at the ceiling.

“Are you praying?” Bruce asked, a little incredulously.

“Apollo, can you save her, please?”

“The Greeks have too many demigods,” a voice said from the corner of the room. “He will be too busy to hear you.”

There was a woman in the room with them, but curiously Diana was not startled; it seemed as if she’d been aware of her for some time, although she couldn’t remember ever thinking about her until just then. It seemed strange that she hadn’t taken notice of her, for now that she was looking she saw that the woman was covered in raw, blistered burns. Strips of skin hung peeling from her chin and arms, and she wore a ragged dress, burned through in places to reveal more of her meat-red flesh.

Diana bowed her head. “I am Diana, Princess of Themyscira, daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. This is Bruce Wayne, a rich and stupid man.” She looked up. “Who are you?”

“Very nice,” the woman said. “Pretty manners. I am Marzanna.”

The woman was speaking Russian, Diana realized, but somehow she had understood, even though she could only speak a few words and read at a child’s level. She looked over at Bruce, who was glancing between them uncomprehendingly. Diana, too, had spoken Russian.

“I do not know you,” Diana said. “I’m sorry. Have you come to heal her?”

Marzanna chuckled and got up, wandering toward Natasha’s body. Flakes of skin fell off in her wake. “Sure.”

“Why?” Diana followed her. “Does she pray to you? I thought she didn’t believe in us.”

“Why should she? Prayer has never saved her. Gods do as they wish.” Marzanna reached Natasha’s side and brushed a lock of blood-soaked hair out of her face.

“But you’ll bring her back anyway,” Diana said. “A liar who doesn’t believe in you.”

Marzanna turned and spat on the lasso, which lay on the floor next to the bed. “This thing. As useful as a hammer for getting at the truth. Would you rather I left her dead?” Her red-rimmed eyes focused on Diana.

“No.” Diana swallowed. “No one deserves to die like that.”

“It was a nice death. If anyone deserves it, it’s her.” Marzanna patted Natasha’s cheek. “It’s not a reward to escape death. I bring her back to suffer.”

“What do you mean?”

Marzanna’s lips beaded with blood as she spoke. “I’ve brought her back many times. Many times, since she was a baby. I love her, my little friend. I bring her back again and again.”

Diana’s breath came short. “Why would you . . .”

“Someone must suffer,” Marzanna said matter-of-factly. “Natasha is one of them. This is the price of the world.”

“If that is why you do it, then let her die.” Diana drew her sword.

Marzanna laughed. “Oh, you will fight me? I love Zeus’s children. You have fought Ares again and again, have you not? Haven’t you learned by now that someone must suffer for others to live?”

“I know the cost of war,” Diana said coldly.

“Not just war. Every good thing comes at a price. The prosperity of countries rests on the suffering of people like Natasha. She has died twenty-one times now, you know. She remembers none of them. Every time is like the first time. This feeds the soil.” She gazed at Natasha’s body. “That’s why they take them as little girls. That is how they took me, the first time.”

“Who took you?”

The Marzanna who answered her was a dirty toddler, mud-caked. Her blisters had disappeared; her skin was smooth as porcelain, the veins showing through. She had no face, but somehow spoke. Diana heard her say, “It was a very long time ago. My village was starving. Thirty people died. Winter came, and it never went away. For three years they tried to survive in the snow. At last they took me into the woods and tied me to a stake. They burned me alive. It hurt worse than you can imagine. In the morning, new trees had grown where I died. Spring came then. And they were saved.”

Diana stared down at her, horrified. “They burned you? A child?”

“Spring must come every year.” Marzanna’s sightless face tipped toward her. “Every year I am burned.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

“If not me,” the child said, “it would be somebody else. And I have a lot of practice, now, being burned.” She touched Natasha’s hair. “She drowned, you know. That was her first death.”

Diana dropped her sword and fell to her knees. “Then let her go, at least. Let her escape with me to Themyscira.”

“If she escapes me,” Marzanna said, straightening up, “a thousand others will die worse deaths. Is that your wish?” She swelled a little, sickeningly, and Diana saw that she was pregnant. Above the straining belly, two faces peered out from either side of her head.

“No,” Diana said. “I want them all to live.”

“They can’t.” Marzanna fixed her with the left-side face, which had drooping brown eyes with thick lashes. Moles dotted her olive skin. “The Widows give up death and serve me instead. They know that not everyone can live. They all want spring to come.”

She pressed her knotted fingers to Natasha’s neck.  

“Stop—stop—”

But Diana didn’t know who she was speaking to. Natasha’s chest was rising and falling. The blood had slowed.

“We should get her to a hospital,” Bruce said.

“I’ll take her,” Diana answered, blinking. Had there been someone else in the room? She glanced down. A sapling was growing out of the floor, tangled in the loops of her lasso.

“Better hurry,” Bruce said. “I hear the cops.”


	10. Chapter 10

Natasha woke up in a stiff bed. Ivan’s house, she thought, and tried to recall her dream before it disappeared. But she found she could remember everything: the lasso, Diana’s bed, Bruce bursting in, the shuriken.

She opened her eyes. She was in a hospital. Machines blinked at her bedside. She tried to turn her head and winced.

“Welcome back, Natasha,” Fury said from somewhere beside her.

Natasha didn’t reply. Her brain worked quickly.

“Your friends dropped you off on my doorstep,” Fury said. “Seems like you got in a little trouble with the Batman.”

“She’s gone?” Natasha said hoarsely.

“Yeah, she ain’t coming back.” The chair creaked as Fury shifted. “She said you two got in a fight about loyalties. She wanted you to join the Justice League. You stuck with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Natasha stared at the ceiling.

“Well, I appreciate it,” Fury said, standing up and heading for the door. “Welcome back to the fold, Natasha. S.H.I.E.L.D. will always take care of its own.”

She hadn't escaped; only traded one boss for another. 

Natasha flexed her fingers. Diana had taken her ring. In its place was a crumpled Polaroid. Diana's face stared up from its creases. It felt like years ago that Natasha had taken the picture on the benches during her lunch break, although it had been only days. 

She turned the Polaroid over in her hands. On the back something had been scrawled. She brought it closer to her face. 

It was Diana's handwriting. 

_So you won't forget_

 

 

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. If you like this story, comment!


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